f.c-/y/- 




ECONOMIC THEE PLANTING. 



BY 



B. G. ISTORTHROP, LL.D. 



NEW YORK: 

The Orange Judd Company. 

•245 broadway. 

1878. 



ECONOMIC TREE PLANTING. 



■ r -• BY 

b/g; ISrOETHEOP, LL.D. 



J-.»Q^ > n»,o 



,•' •■)-)» «, «, 



NEW YORK: 

The Orange Judd Company 

245 broadway. 

1878. 



s^-?-' 



This paper is reprinted from the Report of the Connecticut State 
Board of Agriculture. A few local allusions are retained to show 
the original aim of the writer and the application of kindred facts 
and plans to other fields. 

An enlarged edition will soon be published under the title of 
" Tree -planting, Economic and Ornamental, and Village Improve, 
ment." 

Public interest in rural adornment is rapidly increasing in 
Connecticut. This good work should go on till not a school-house, 
dwelling, or street is left without the simple and grand adornment 
of shade trees. A little foresight will show that no community 
can afford to be without a Village Improvement Association. In 
many towns such organizations have already done incalculable 
good in cultivating public spirit, quickening social and intellectual 
life,'- and" ;enhancin^; ^he ^alue of real estate. I shall be happy to 
co-operatt3 ' with 'pti^Lfc-gpirited ' citizens who are moving in this 
matter,.ajid; win, -lecture' on this subject without charge either for 
services .or .42!p^nse^*iii ''an J town i^" Connecticut. 

7 D'03 









ECONOMIC TREE-PLANTING. 

BY HON. B. G. NORTHROP. 

Being neither a scientist nor farmer, I have made no origi- 
nal investigations or practical experiments in forestry. Lest 
I may seem presumptuous in attempting to instruct others on 
a great subject in which I am myself a novice, reference is 
made to my opportunities for learning the matured views of 
those who, devoting tlieir lives to this study, have made inves- 
tigations and experiments on a broad scale. Three months 
of last summer were occupied iu visiting " the Foresters," 
forest schools, and forest plantations of Europe. The letter of 
Governor Hubbard,* and one from Hon. Wm. M. Evarts, Sec- 
retary of State, bespeaking the cooperation of our ministers 
and consuls, whose aid might be needed, gave free access to 
all desired sources of information, especially the official 
" Departments of Forestry," forest schools and their professors, 
forest plantations, national, communal, or private, and their 
managers, and the parks and gardens on the Continent and in 
England. With note-book always in hand, I conferred with 
numerous authors in this department, as well as practical 
foresters. Gathering facts from so many experts, and con- 
densing statements from so many sources, it is impracticable 
in this address to formally quote their language, which I have 
freely modified and abridged. In addition to the professors 
of the forest schools visited, and to many diplomatic agents, I 

* Executive Department, Hartford, Conn., June 12, 1877. 
I have signed these presents for the purpose of duly accrediting the Hon. 
B. G. Northrop, of the Board of Education of this State, who is commissioned 
by said Board to visit the Schools of Forestry and Forest Plantations, and the 
Industrial Schools of Europe, and report the results of his observations for the 
benefit of the schools and people of this State, and especially to encourage the 
reclamation of waste lands by the propagation of trees. I beg to commend Mr. 
Northrop to the courtesies and co-operation of all persons to whom these pres- 
ents shall come, and particularly to those who are managers of the institutions 
above named, and are interested therein. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto 
set my hand. RICHARD D. HUBBARD. 



am especially indebted to Hon. George P. Marsh, the Ameri- 
can Minister to Rome, Captain Campbell Walker, Conserva- 
tor of State Forests in New Zealand, J. C. Brown, Lt. D., long 
Colonial Botanist at Cape of Good Hope, and J. McGregor, 
Forester of the Duke of Athole, for information given in per- 
sonal interviews as well as for that derived from their pub- 
lished works. 

The literature of forestry, already large, is now rapidly 
increasing by the cooperation of professors in forest scliodls, 
and government officials specially commissioned to investi- 
gate different branches of the subject, and many other writers. 
A German catalogue gives the titles of 1,815 volumes on 
forestry issued prior to 1842, and the titles of 650 works pub- 
lished in the six years prior to 1876. On an average, over 
one hundred new books on forestry appear annually in the 
German language. One of the Spanish Commissioners to the 
Centennial Exposition, Senor Morera, published a list of 
1,126 volumes on forestry in tlie Spanish language alone. 

Little attention has been given in this country to sylvicul- 
ture. Nature has been* wonderfully bountiful in the magnifi- 
cent forests which once adorned this land, but our people 
have been recklessly prodigal in wasting this rich inheritance. 
As if they were the enemies of man, forests have been con- 
sumed without a thought of renewing them, and fire has been 
made to help the axe in destroying what it required ages to 
produce. 

The progress of a nation may be measured to a large extent 
by its consumption of wood. Extensively as brick, stone, and 
iron may be substituted for wood in building, and coal used for 
fuel, the timber demand for purposes of utility and ornament 
will everywhere increase as civilization advances. The rail- 
ways are enormous consumers of wood. Says Professor C. S. 
Sargent : " Suppgsing the life of a sleeper is seven years, the 
85,000 miles of track in the United States consume annually 
34,000,000 sleepers, or thirty years' growth on 68,000 acres 
of the best natural woodlands. At least 125,000 miles of fencing 
are required to enclose the railroads of the country, costing 
not less than 143,000,000, with large expenditures for annual 



repairs. For the construction of 65,000 miles of telegraph 
lines in the United States, 2,000,000 trees for poles were 
required, while the annual repairs must call for 250,000 more." 
A late Agricultural Report of Illinois says : " The fences of 
the United States cost more than any other class of property 
except real estate and railroads ; the total amount being esti- 
mated at eighteen hundred millions of dollars, with an annual 
expense of ninety-eight millions for repairs." Desirable as 
may be live hedges, stone walls or ditches, wooden fences are 
likely to be long used. 

But aside from the need of fencing, and the demands for 
railway and telegraph companies, there are nearly seventy 
occupations enumerated in the last United States census 
which in whole or in part use wood as their raw material 
for manufacture, employing more than one million of 
artisans, such as carpenters, cabinet-makers, chair-makers, 
coach-makers, coopers, boat and ship builders, wheelwrights, 
manufacturers oY brooms, brushes, matches, furniture, agri- 
cultural implements, machinery and the like. Tliere are 
63,928 establishments manufacturijig articles made entirely 
of wood, employing 393,387 persons, and using materials 
worth 1309,921,403 annually. There are, besides, 109,512 
establishments in which wood is an important material, as for 
example, in pianos, carriages, bridges and ships, employing 
700,915 persons, and using materials worth $488,530,844. 
With these facts before us, there need be no fear of an over- 
production of wood. It is estimated that in our whole coun- 
try over three million acres of wood-growing land are cleared 
annually, and this usually without any proper plans for refor- 
esting them. Favorably situated as Connecticut is, in the 
midst of these industries and near the great market centers, 
and with new calls for exportation, there is sure to be a grow- 
ing demand for all desirable lumber. 

George Peabody, who did so much to encourage schools and 
learning, originated the motto, so happily illustrated by his 
own munificent gifts to promote education: " Education — the 
debt of the present to future generations." We owe it to our 
children to leave our lands the better for our tillage, and we 



wrong both ourselves and them if our fields are impoverished 
by our improvidence. But much as foresight is admired 
when its predictions are realized and its acliievements made, 
all history too plainly tells that the mass of men are not 
easily persuaded to provide for exigencies far in the future. 
It was more than two centuries after the death of Bernard 
Palissy, the famous " Potter of the Tuilleries," and after 
many sad lessons of devastating mountain torrents resulting 
from excessive forest denudation, before France learned to 
heed his earnest warning. Expressing his indignation at the 
folly of such general destruction of the woods he said : " I call 
it not error, but a curse and a calamity to all France. When 
I consider the value of the least clump of trees, I marvel at the 
great ignorance of men who do now-a-days study only to break 
down, fell and waste the fair forests which their forefathers did 
guard so choicely. I would think no evil of them for cutting 
down the woods, did they but replant some part of them 
again, but they care naught for the time to come, neither 
reck they of the great damage they do to their children." In 
1680, the eminent French statesman, Colbert, said to Louis 
Xiy. : " France will perish for want of wood." 

It was not, however, till 1859 and 1860 that stringent laws 
were passed for the protection of existing woodlands and the 
formation of new forests. The former of these laws passed 
the Assembly by a vote of 246 against 4, and the latter with 
but a single negative voice. The unanimity with which these 
laws were enacted, though they seriously interfere with the 
rights of private domain, shows at last the strength of the 
popular conviction that the protection and extension of forests 
were matters of national interest and necessity, and would 
arrest the devastations of mountain torrents and river imui- 
dations. The law of 1860 appropriated 10,000,000 francs, 
at the rate of 1,000,000 a year, in aiding the replanting of 
woods. In 1865 a bill was passed for securing the soil in ex- 
posed localities by grading, and the formation of greensward. 

This measure, proved to be beneficial in France, Mr. Marsh 
highly recommends for adoption in the United States. The 
leading features of this system are marking out and securing 



from pasturage and browsing a zone along the banks of ravines, 
wliicli is carefully turfed and planted with shrubs and trees ; 
con soli dating the scarps of the ravines by grading and wattling 
and establishing barriers of solid masonry, or more commonly 
of fascines, or other simple materials across the bed of the 
stream, and cutting narrow terraces along the scarps. Many 
hundred ravines, formerly the channels of formidable torrents, 
have been secured by barriers, and by grading and planting, 
and the success of the system has far surpassed all expectation. 
The plan of circling^ long used in this country, is now adopted 
in France. This plan prevents the wash of tlie surface, and 
provides irrigation by running horizontal furrows along the 
hill-sides, and thus cheaply securing a succession of small 
terraces, checking the rapid flow of the surface water, obvi- 
ating one cause of inundations, and greatly fertilizing the 
lands thus irrigated. 

The evils of widespread forest denudation both as regards 
climatic changes, uniform flow of springs and streams, devas- 
tation by mountain torrents, and the exhaustion of once fertile 
lands, have been long and sadly felt in the Old World. Many 
rich and fertile countries have become arid wastes when 
denuded of trees. The Mediterranean coast of Africa is a 
case in point. Tunis and Algiers were once fertile regions, 
supporting a dense population. Their decadence is traceable 
largely to the destruction of their forests. Rentzsch ascribes 
the political decadence of Spain almost wholly to the destruc- 
tion of the forests. 

Mr. George P. Marsh says: "There are parts of Asia 
Minor, of Northern Africa, of Greece, and even of Alpine 
Europe, where causes set in action by man have brought the 
face of the earth to a desolation as complete as that of the 
moon, and yet they are known to have been once covered with 
luxuriant woods, verdant pastures, and fertile meadows; and 
a dense population formerly inhabited those now lonely dis- 
tricts. The fairest and fruitfulest provinces of the Roman 
empire once endowed with the greatest superiority of soil, 
climate, and position, are completely exhausted of their fer- 
tility, or so diminished in their productiveness as, with the 



8 

exception of a few favored cases that have escaped the general 
ruin, to be no longer capable of affording sustenance to civil- 
ized man. If to this realm of desolation we add the now 
wasted and solitary soils of Persia and the remoter East, that 
once fed their millions with milk and honey, we shall see that 
a territory larger than all Europe, the abundance of which 
sustained in by-gone centuries a population scarcely inferior to 
that of the whole Christian world at the present day, has been 
entirely withdrawn fr6m human use, or at best is inhabited by 
tribes too few, poor, and uncultivated to contribute anything 
to the general, moral, or material interests of mankind. The 
destructive changes occasioned by the agency of man upon the 
flanks of the Alps, the Appenines, the Pyrenees, and other 
mountain ranges of Central and Southern Europe, and the 
progress of physical deterioration, have become so rapid that 
in some localities a single generation has witnessed the begin- 
ning and the end of the melancholy revolution. A destruction 
like that which has overwhelmed many once beautiful and 
fertile regions of Europe awaits an important part of the ter- 
ritory of the United States, unless prompt measures are taken 
to check the action of the destructive causes already in 
operation." 

Indeed we have already a great Sahara in Connecticut pro- 
duced by improvidence and neglect. The local traditions tell us 
that the "sand-blow," covering so large an area in the towns 
of North Haven and Wallingford, which, with its clouds 
of dust, is a literal eye-sore to all travelers on the New Haven 
& Hartford Railway, was once finely wooded. Here and 
there clumps of low cedars and pines, the lone relics of a 
former growth, still resist the drifting sands. So general is 
the conviction that this sand blow is utterly irreclaimable 
that it has long since been abandoned to hopeless sterility. 
I shall be happily disappointed if my plan for utilizing it is 
not regarded by many farmers as visionary and impracticable. 
The feasibility of reclaiming the barren sands of Connecti- 
cut, even the wastes of Wallingford and North Haven, is 
proved by many facts. While agent of the Massachusetts 
State Board of Education I visited every town of that State, 



and found thousands of acres in Plymouth and Barnstable 
counties — once sandy plains — covered with fine forests. The 
common pitch pine has tliere been most generally used for the 
reclamation of sand barrens. Recently the Scotch pine has 
been widely planted. The seeds were sometimes sowed broad- 
cast, and sometimes dropped in furrows. The cost was trifling, 
and the profit has been satisfactory. 

Hummel attributes the desolation of the Karst, the high 
plateau lying north of Trieste — until recently one of the most 
parched and barren districts in Europe — to the felling of its 
woods, centuries ago, to build the navies of Venice. The 
Austrian government is now making energetic, and thus far 
successful efforts for the reclamation of this desolate waste, 
having planted over half a million of young trees, and sown 
great quantities of seed. In the vicinity of Antwerp less than 
fifty years ago was a vast desolate plain. Looking to-day in 
the same direction from the spire of the cathedral, one can 
see nothing but a forest, whose limits seem lost in the horizon. 
Forest plantations have transformed those barren lands into 
fertile fields. French writers point with pride to an experi- 
ment begun eighty years ago on the very crest of a peninsula 
in Dauphiny, where stands a long stretch of fine forest, and 
where it had been confidently affirmed trees could not be made 
to grow. 

On the Adriatic, Baltic, Mediterranean, Biscayan, and other 
coasts, the disastrous encroachments of the sea have been 
checked by forest plantations. Extensive plains, once barren 
sands south of Berlin, about Odessa and north of the Black 
Sea and vast steppes in Russia, are now well wooded. 
R. Douglass & Sons of Waukegan, Illinois, who have been 
the pioneers in promoting economic tree planting in the West, 
began four years ago the experiment of reclaiming barren sand 
ridges near the shore of Lake Michigan, trying pitch pine, 
white pine, Austrian pine, and Scotch pine. Here, as on 
Cape Cod, the Scotch pine proved the best for reclaiming 
sandy barrens. With these facts from abroad and at home it 
cannot be denied that even the poorest soils in Connecticut 
may be reclaimed. The Finus maritima, which proved best 



10 

for the sandy soils in France, is not adapted to the climate of 
New England. It has been amply tried, and though growing 
rapidly for a season or two, is likely to winter-kill. 5ut our 
native pitch pine, and still better the Scotch pine, are specially 
adapted to sandy barrens. 

Daniel Webster planted many pines at Marshfield, and 
induced farmers in Plymouth and Barnstable counties to try 
the same experiment. This has been done very extensively 
by Mr. J. S. Fay, in Falmouth, near Wood's Hole. In visit- 
ing Falmouth I was happily impressed with the beauty and 
remarkable growth of his tree plantations. There, is a tract 
of over one hundred and twenty-five acres now densely cov- 
ered with fine trees. When purchased by him, Mr. Fay 
says, "It was a barren waste, the soil dry and worn out. 
On a hundred acres there was not a tree of any kind, unless 
an oak sprang out from the huckleberry bushes here and 
there, but hardly lifting its head above them. Indeed, when I 
bought my place in 1853, except a few stunted cedars on Par- 
ker's Point and in the swamps, there was not an evergreen 
tree within three miles of my house, and hardly any tree of 
any kind in sight of it. It was maintained that trees could 
not be made to grow there. The seeds sown were of the 
native pitch pine with some white pine, tlie Austrian, Scotch, 
and Corsican pine, the Norway spruce, and the European 
larch — in all about thirty-five thousand imported plants, and 
many thousand native pines. As to the kinds which liave 
done the best, the Scotch pine from the seed^ including 
prompt germination, has proved the best grower, and very 
hardy. The Norway spruce and English oak have done well. 
The larch did not start well from the seed, but from the nurs- 
ery or as imported it has grown remarkably. The hardy 
Scotch pine does finely either from the seed or the nursery. 
All these imported trees have done better than the native pitch 
pine. The larches are about forty feet high, and fourteen 
inches in diameter one foot from the ground. Some Scotch 
pines from seed sown in 1861, well situated and in good soil, 
are thirty feet high, and ten inches through, a foot from the 
ground. As to profits, one thing is sure. The land, originally 



11 

poor, has been enriched by the deposit of thousands of loads 
of leaves upon it, and by the shade afforded, while the soil has 
been lightened and lifted by the permeation of the roots of 
the trees; and though no present profit has been yet realized, 
(which already might have been by sales of the wood,) it 
sliould be considered as an investment for future results. 
Considering the position of my place, on a coast exposed to 
violent sea winds permeated with salt spray, the vigorous 
growth and promising appearance of my forest plantations are 
very encouraging to those more favorably placed. Not only 
may the destruction of our forests be partially remedied at a 
cheap cost, but the waste and sterility of our land by long cul- 
tivating be replaced with fertility by the simple process of 
nature." 

The Scotch fir or pine, which Mr. Fay so highly commends, 
is a native of the Highlands, a hardy tree, and the most rapid 
grower of all the evergreens suited to our climate — the Euro- 
pean larch, a still more rapid grower, being deciduous. It will 
thrive in the most dissimilar soils and on poorest sands where 
most other evergreens will not flourish, and makes an excel- 
lent wind-break. Its timber is not duly appreciated in this 
country. In England it is as highly prized as the best Baltic 
pine, and regarded as superior to our white pine for general 
purposes. While skeptical on this point, we must at least ad- 
mit that it is harder, more durable, and more resinous than 
the white pine. It is light, stiff, and strong, freer from knots 
than any other fir, easily worked, and well adapted to all kinds 
of house carpentry. It is extensively used for masts and in 
naval architecture. In England it yields large quantities of 
tar, turpentine, and resin. Next to the larch it is the tree 
most commonly planted in Great Britain. It should be ex- 
tensively used in Connecticut in reclaiming lands too poor for 
the larch. It proved a great success in the sandy wastes of 
Kincorth and Culbin in Scotland, which are now thriving 
forests. 

Among the foresters of largest experience in Europe, I found 
the planting out system growing in favor, in place of sowing 
the seed, whether in furrows or broadcast in the fields where 



12 

the trees are to remain. If sowing is adopted, the land, ex- 
cept on sand barrens, must be well prepared. The general 
practice abroad is to sow the seed in beds, as beet or onion beds 
are prepared with us. The Germans speak of the seedlings 
while in the nursery beds as " in the school," and this phrase 
happily suggests how they should be treated. The aim is here 
to start, harden, and root the young plants in a small area 
where they can be sheltered with brush or otherwise from the 
scorching sun, and watered if need be in case of drought. 

If the seedlings are to be put out close by the garden, they 
may be planted direct from the mother bed at the end of one or 
two years. But when they are to be removed to any distance 
or planted as forests, they should be transplanted at the end 
of the first or second year and planted for forests one year 
later. The larch and Scotch pine are usually planted perma- 
nently, two years from sowing in beds and one year from the 
planting, that is three years from the seed. The direction 
is constantly repeated to let the trees grow up very tJiickly for 
a few years, as they will at first thin themselves on the 
theory of the survival of the fittest, and after the 'fifth year 
the value of the poles will pay for the further thinning re- 
quired. When planted, the rows should not be more than 
three feet apart, and the plants stand two feet apart in the 
rows, giving some seven thousand to the acre, varying with the 
kind of trees. At the outset the trees are planted more thickly 
in Europe than in America. 

Will it pay the average farmer of Connecticut to plant 
trees ? Certainly not if early profit is essential. The answer 
depends on various circumstances, such as the size of one's 
farm, its soil and situation. But in an ordinary Connecticut 
farm of from sixty to one hundred acres and upwards, I answer 
yes. If you are looking ahead and seeking an investment for 
future profit, " trees will make dollars, for they will grow in 
waste places where nothing else can be profitably cultivated. 
A soil too thin and rough for cereals may be favorable for 
trees. Hillsides and plains exhausted and worn out by the 
plow have often been reclaimed by planting forests. Ravines 
too steep for cultivation are the favorite seats of timber, and 



13 

wherever a crevice is found in a rocky ledge, the root of a tree 
will burrow and spread, taking a hold so firm as to defy the 
storm, and acting mechanically to disintegrate the rock and 
change its constituent elements into useful products. By the 
road-side, the river-bank, along the brook, and on the over- 
hanging cliff, a tree may be alwaj's earning wealth for its 
owners, both in our densest settlements and in the waste 
places of our most valuable lands." In no way can we ulti- 
mately enrich Connecticut more than by planting the choicest 
trees on our exhausted and unproductive lands. In such situ- 
ations forests will yield a large percentage of profit. This is 
a duty we owe to ourselves and to our children. 

In many positions forests are of great service as wind-breaks ; 
even riarrow strips of trees aft'ord a needful shelter to fruit trees 
and to various crops, as well as a shield to cattle from piercing 
winds. Evergreens serve best for screens, as deciduous trees 
are leafless when their shelter is most needed, especially for 
stock and around farm buildings. The evergreens most suit- 
able for this purpose are the Norway spruce, white pine, Scotch 
pine, and Austrian pine ; and next to these are the American 
arbor vitse, hemlock, and spruce. Sheltered orchards are 
most productive and less likely to lose their fruit prematurely 
by violent winds, and the farmer with proper wind-screens 
consumes less fuel in his house and less forage in his stables. 
Stated in the order of their obvious advantage to individual 
farmers, the benefits of tree-planting would be, first, direct 
profit in timber and fuel ; second, the reclamation of waste 
land ; third, shelter ; fourth, climatic gain and hygienic influ- 
ence ; and fifth, ornamentation. 

The climatic influence of forests has been of late the subject 
of extensive investigation in Europe, and much evidence gath- 
ered showing that forest denudation may result in detriment 
to the health and welfare of a community. The influence of 
forests on rainfall, climate, and water supply, has been freely 
discussed in the schools of forestry and in scientific circles. 
It is not proved that extensive denudation will cause a marked 
decrease in the total rainfall of any large country. While this 
is still an unsettled question, recent observations in France, 



14 

made with great care and complete sets of instruments at 
different stations, seem to establish the facts, first, ^that 
throughout the year six per cent, more rain falls in the forests 
than in the open fields ; second, that of the total rainfall ten 
per cent, in the forest is caught by the leaves and reaches the 
earth very gradually, or not at all ; and, third, that the evap- 
oration in the open country is five times as great as in a 
forest. 

But on the question of the influence of forests on climate 
and the permanent water supply, there is a growing unanimity 
among practical foresters and professors in the forest schools 
of Europe. Their theories and observations plainly show 
that the wholesale clearing of forests has an injurious effect 
on both, while the extensive planting of trees on arid regions 
has ameliorated the climate, prevented mountain torrents, and 
rendered the water supply more permanent. These investi- 
gations show that the general destruction of forests has ren- 
dered the climate dryer, more changeable and trying, and that 
forests on the one hand tend to lower the general temperature 
of a country and promote the fall of rain at more regular in- 
tervals, and on the other hand they ward off sudden meteor- 
ological changes which result in heavy falls of rain and 
disastrous floods. 

It is well known that houses too closely surrounded by trees 
are damp. Beautiful and healthful as shade trees are, they 
may stand too near the house. Dense evergreens growing so 
close as to shut out all sunlight, are harmful. It is an old 
Italian proverb, that " where the sunlight cannot come the 
doctor must;" and sometimes the wisest direction of the 
physician to his rheumatic patient is, to cut down the tree 
which too densely overshadows the house and excludes all 
sunlight. The wetness of roads completely overshadowed by. 
trees, shows how forests affect the humidity of the ground 
they cover. Mr. Marsh says : " One important conclusion at 
least is certain and undisputed, that within their own limits 
and near their own borders forests maintain a more uniform 
degree of humidity in the atmosphere than is observed in 
cleared grounds." Speaking of the indiscriminate clearing in 



15 

America, he says : " with the disappearance of the forest, all 
is changed. At one season, the earth parts with its warmth 
by radiation to an open sky, and at another receives heat 
from the unobstructed rays of the sun ; hence the climate be- 
comes excessive, and the soil is alternately parched by the 
fervor of summer and seared by the rigors of winter." 

Wm. Cullen Bryant says : " Our summers are becoming dryer 
and our streams smaller. Take the Cuyahoga as an illustra- 
tion. Fifty years ago large barges loaded with goods went up 
and down that river. Now, in an ordinary stage of the water, 
a canoe or skiff can hardly pass down the stream. And from 
the same cause — the destruction of our forests — other streams 
are drying up in summer." Almost every work on forestry 
abounds in evidence that extensive forest denudation has 
everywhere diminished the flow of springs. The case of the 
famous spring in the Island of Ascension is often cited, which 
dried up when the adjacent mountain was cleared, but reap- 
peared in a few years after the wood was replanted. Several 
lakes in Switzerland showed a depression of their level after a 
general devastation of the forests. Siemoni says : " In a rocky 
nook in the Tuscan Apennines there flowed a perennial stream 
from three adjacent springs. On the disappearance of the 
woods around and above the springs the stream ceased, except 
in rainy weather, but when a new growth of wood again shaded 
the soil, the springs began to flow." Marchand says : " The 
river that from time immemorial furnished ample water-power 
for the factory at St. Ursanne dwindled so much when the sur- 
rounding woods were cut that the factory was at last obliged to 
stop altogether." President Chadbourne says that Salt Lake 
contains nearly twice as much water as it did when the Mor- 
mons came, and that the water supply is increasing throughout 
the territory, not by an increase of rain, but cultivation 
and extensive groves of trees have checked the influence of 
drying winds and lessened evaporation.* 

* Near my residence (Woburn, Massachusetts,) there is a pond upon which 
mills have been standing since the early settlement of the town. These have 
been kept in constant operation until within thirty years, when the supply of 
water began to fail. The pond owes its existence to a stream which has its 
source in the hills stretching some miles to the south. Within the time mentioned. 



16 

I visited the planted forests of the Duke of Athole — whose 
estates, beginning near Dunkeld in Scotland, extend forty 
miles by ten — in company with Captain Campbell Walker, 
now the Conservator of State Forests in New Zealand, 
who was long employed in the same service in India. He 
said he had personally observed the drying up of springs and 
decrease of the average amount of water in some of the 
mountain forests in India, in which extensive clearing had 
taken place, and that such clearing had unquestionably less- 
ened the regular supply for springs and permanent flow in 
the streams and rivers. While I was in England, the terrible 
famine in India resulting in the starvation of over seven 
hundred and fifty thousand people — more than the entire 
population of Connecticut and Rhode Island — was a promi- 
nent theme of public thought and talk and sympathy. Cap- 
tain Walker, Dr. J. C. Brown, and other foresters expressed 
the view that forest denudation, diminishing the springs and 
lessening the former sources of artificial irrigation, was the 
leading cause of this terrible calamity. Under the early rule 
of the East India Company, there was a wide-spread devasta- 
tion of the forests, and in later years the construction of 
extensive railway and telegraph lines have created a new 
demand for timber. Recently the English Government has 
adopted energetic measures for re-foresting the mountains, 
and placed the remaining forests under the supervision of 
competent foresters. 

In a paper read to the Vienna Geographical Society in 
1875, Herr Wex, Counsellor of State, and Director of the 
Government Works for the regulation of the flow of the 
Danube, affirms that in the last fifty years the decrease in 
the average level or comparison of the highest and lowest 
flow of the Elbe and Oder has been seventeen inches, the 
Rhine twenty-four, Vistula twenty -six, Danube at Orsova, fifty- 
five. These measurements, embracing the greatest flood 

these hills, which were clothed with a dense forest, have been stripped of trees, 
and what was never heard of before, the stream itself has been entirely dry. 
Within the last ten years a new growth of wood has sprung up on the land 
formerly occupied by the old forest, and now the water runs through the year. 
Dk. Piper — Trees of America. 



17 

heights, the lowest flow, and the medium average flow, show 
that the floods are unquestionably higher than in former 
years, and the contrast between tlie highest and lowest flow 
is greater, and that these higher floods are no compensation 
for the diminution of the medium and low flood, and tliat many 
manufactories built during the last fifty years have experi- 
enced a marked diminution in the water supply of their 
streams, and steam-engines have been employed to meet tlie 
deficiency of water-power, once ample to do the same work. 

The cause of this remarkable phenomena lies in the exten- 
sive clearing away of the forests, especially in the mountains, 
where deluges of rain occur more frequently ; for, in lands 
devoid of trees, the rain water sinks less into the soil, 
but more speedily reaches the brooks, streams, and rivers, 
and fills and overflows these water-courses, and results 
in disastrous floods. The correctness of this conclusion is 
sadly attested by the now frequently recurring inundations in 
Italy, in the south of France, Hungary, Bohemia, and in 
many other lands. It may be worthy of inquiry whether the 
general clearing of the mountain forests around Salisbury, 
Connecticut, to meet the growing demand for charcoal for the 
furnaces, had any connection with the desolating flood which 
occurred in that town four years ago. A resident of Salis- 
bury, whose farm lies near the base of the mountain skirting 
that town, says that a stream on his land, formerly never fail- 
ing, has dried up every summer for tlie last twenty years. 

By several learned societies — like the Royal Academy of Sci- 
ence of Vienna, and the Imperial Academy of Science of St. 
Petersburg — commissioners were appointed to report upon the 
paper of Wex, and their reports substantially confirm his 
views, and say : "Forests exercise abeneficial influence which 
can hardly be estimated too highly in an increased humidity 
of the air, a reduction of the extremes of temperature, a 
diminution of evaporation, and a more regular distribution of 
the rainfall, while the injurious effects of their destruction is 
seen in an alternation of periods of drought at one time with 
wasting floods at another." The forests serve as storehouses 
of moisture, both from their leafy canopy which shuts out the 

9 



18 

sun, and the myriads, or rather millions, of leaves covering 
the soil and acting like a sponge, soaking up and retaining the 
rain and regulating its. distribution, while the roots act as ver- 
tical drains, favoring infiltration and promoting the descent of 
the water into the lower strata of the earth, there to nourish 
the springs. 

Among the works of Dr. J. C. Brown on Forestry — the 
most voluminous writer on this subject in the English lan- 
guage — is one on ^' Rehoisement in France," or the replanting 
of the Alps, the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees, to arrest and 
prevent the destructive consequences of torrents. He clearly 
shows from official documents what fearful inundations 
resulted from the over-clearing of forests, and describes the 
remedial measures now in progress, which are to extend 
through many years and to cost over twelve millions of francs. 
But the loss of property by the terrible inundations in the 
south of France in 1875 was estimated by the government at 
seventy-five millions of francs, besides tlie loss of over three 
thousand lives. This was the work of a single year. The 
sad lessons of other torrents and other years have now at 
length led to systematic efforts to re-clothe their mountains. 

The benefits that may accrue to our country from the dis- 
cussion of tree- planting, w^ere strikingly exhibited two hundred 
and fourteen years ago, when Sir John Evelyn published his 
celebrated work, entitled, " Sylva ; or, a Discourse on Forest 
Trees and the Propagation of Timber." It was at once received 
with great public favor, and honored with royal commendation. 
He had remarkable success in awakening general interest in 
sylviculture. It was written while he was employed in an 
entirely different branch of public service, but, as he says, 
"from an earnest desire to support the credit of the Royal 
Society, and to convince the world that philosophy was not 
barely an amusement, fit only to employ the time of melan- 
choly and speculative people, but a high and useful science, 
worthy the attention of men of the greatest parts, and capable 
of contributing in a supreme degree to the welfare of the 
nation." He was one of the founders of the Royal Society, 
and wrote this book at its special request, and that society 



19 

has originated few books in the last two hundred years more 
useful than this which still survives in its grand results, 
although his other works on painting, sculpture, architecture, 
and medals have long since been forgotten. In many ways 
England has recognized her great obligations to the man who 
worked so lovingly and effectively for the good of his country- 
men. 

Disraeli, in his " Curiosities of Literature," fittingly says : 
"Had Evelyn only composed the great work of his Sylva, 
his name would have excited the gratitude of posterity. The 
voice of the patriot exults in tlie dedication to Charles II, 
prefixed to one of the later editions, in which he says : ' I 
need not acquaint your Majesty how many millions of timber 
trees, besides infinite others, have been planted throughout 
your vast dominions at the instigation of this work, because 
your Majesty has been pleased to own it publicly for my 
encouragement.' Surely, while Britain retains her situa- 
tion among the nations of Europe, the Sylva of Evelyn will 
endure with her triumphant oaks. It was a retired philoso- 
pher who aroused the genius of the nation, and who, casting 
a prophetic eye towards the age in which we live, contributed 
to secure our sovereignty of the seas. The present navy of 
Great Britain has been constructed with the oaks which the 
genius of John Evelyn planted." 

What trees shall we plant in Connecticut? One of the 
most valuable of our native trees is the white ash, and, all 
things considered, it is one of the most profitable for planting. 
Combining lightness, strength, toughness, elasticity, and 
beauty of grain in a rare degree, it is in great and growing 
demand for farming tools, furniture, interior finishing of 
houses and railroad cars, the construction of carriages, 
for oars and pulley-blocks, and many other purposes. The 
excellence of our ash is one secret of the preference given 
abroad to American agricultural implements. It is hardy, 
will bear the bleakest exposure, is a* rapid grower, and attains 
large size, but will not thrive on poor lands. It is every way 
superior to the European ash, much as that has been cultivated 
and lauded abroad. It is now found widely in the nurseries 



20 

and young plantations attached to the forest schools of 
Europe. Director-General Adolfo Di B^ranger, President of 
the Royal Institute Forestale at Yallombrosa, pointed me to 
his plantations of Fraxi7ius Americana with a tone which 
implied that is the tree of which Americans may well be 
proud. 

The ash is a fine ornamental tree for private grounds, 
public parks, or for the way-side. When planted closely 
for timber they grow straight and free from low laterals, 
and early reach a size that makes the thinnings valuable 
for poles and fencing. Mr. Budd, a tree grower of Iowa, says : 
*'A grove of ten acres thinned to six feet apart, containing 
twelve thousand trees, at twelve years were eight inches in 
diameter and thirty-five feet high, the previous thinning pay- 
ing all expenses of planting and cultivation. Ten feet of the 
bodies of these trees were worth, for making bent stuiT, etc., 
forty cents each, and the remaining top ten cents, making a 
total of $6,000 as the profit of ten acres in twelve years, or a 
yearly profit of $50 per acre." Mr. Edward Norton of Farm- 
ington has about sixteen thousand white ash plants, raised 
from last year's seed, now in rows to be planted next spring. 
They are very thrifty, and average about one foot in height. 
Very few of them died during the summer. He has gathered 
seed enough for about one hundred thousand plants, which he 
intends to start next spring. 

The seeds of the ash are abundant, ripening by the first 
of October. They may be easily gathered after the first 
frost. If sown in the fall they should be covered with 
three inches of straw. If to be sown in the spring the seed 
may be mixed with damp sand. With all seedlings care 
should be taken to keep down the weeds. In some of 
the nurseries connected with the forest schools, I noticed 
the seed-beds were protected by green bushes during 
the hottest and dryest part of the summer. For field planting, 
the land should be plowed and made mellow in the autumn, 
that the trees may be planted early in the spring. A little 
over five thousand plants will be required to the acre, where 
they are set in rows four feet apart, and two feet apart in the 



21 

rows. The weeds can be kept down for three years with a 
cultivator, when tlie ground will be sufficiently shaded to 
require no further cultivation. 

Connecticut is rich in its variety of native trees, having 
nearly sixty species, of which about forty are sizable for tim- 
ber. Among the native trees worthy of cultivation may be 
named the white ash, white oak, sugar maple, chestnut, hick- 
ory, butternut, white pine, willow, and the elm. The latter, 
when growing under favoring conditions, has been pronounced 
^'the most magnificent vegetable of the temperate zone." 
Much as the willow has been used as an ornamental tree, its 
economic value has not been appreciated in this country. The 
white willow is especially commended by experienced arborists. 
While most at home in low grounds and beside streams, it is 
hardy and will grow, though not as thriftily, on dry uplands 
and in poor soils. Professor William H. Brewer says : " In 
England, where it is often sixty or seventy feet high in twenty 
years, there is no wood in greater demand than good willow. 
It is light, very tough, soft, takes a good finish, will bear more 
pounding and knocks than any other wood grown there, and 
hence its use for cricket bats, for floats to paddle-wheels of 
steamers, and brake-blocks on cars. It is used extensively for 
turning, planking coasting vessels, furniture, ox-yokes, wooden 
legs, shoe-lasts, etc. Its charcoal is used for making gun- 
powder, its bark for tanning, its sprouts for withes and bas- 
kets. In some sections of Europe it has been planted from 
remote times as one of their most valued trees." Starting 
from cuttings and growing rapidly it can be very easily prop- 
agated. Fuller says: " It groweth incredibly fast — it being a 
by-word that the profit by willows will buy the owner a horse 
before that by other trees will pay for the saddle." Mr. Sar- 
gent says: "As willow timber could be produced far more 
cheaply than that of any of our native trees, it should soon 
come into general use here for the purposes requiring light- 
ness, pliancy, elasticity, and toughness — qualities which it 
possesses in an eminent degree, and for which more valuable 
woods are now employed. Less than one-third of the willow 
used in the United States for basket making is produced here 



22 

the remainder being imported from Great Britain, France, 
Holland, and Belgium, at an annual cost of five millions of 
dollars. The osier proper, the product of Salix vimi7ialis and 
its allies, can be grown without trouble in any wet, undrained 
soil, capable of producing little else of value; but the better 
sorts of basket willow are only successfully produced with 
careful cultivation on rich, well-drained soil. Under such 
conditions it is a profitable crop, capable of netting at least 
$150 a year to the acre, and well worth the attention of our 
farmers.'' The experiment of raising willows is worth trying, 
though I do not anticipate so large profits as Professor Sar- 
gent promises. 

For the reclamation of our pastures and waste lands aban- 
doned to hard-hack, sumac, and other worthless brush, the 
European larch deserves to become a favorite. A native of 
the Alps, Apennines, of the Tyrol and Carpathian Mountains, 
it is a very hardy tree, and at home in a variety of well- 
drained soils, especially on rough, rocky, or gravelly ground, 
and the most rugged ravines. There are in our State large 
tracts of bleak hill-sides and mountain declivities or summits, 
now practically worthless, where the larch, thickly planted, 
would soon choke out brush, weeds, and grasses. As an orna- 
mental tree it grows finely even in deep and rich loam, but its 
extraordinary qualities for timber may be impaired when 
grown on the rich prairies of the West or the best lands of 
the East. When raised under right conditions it combines 
the two qualities of rapidity of growth and durability of wood 
more than any other tree. This wood was in high favor with 
the Romans for the building of ships and bridges. Julius 
Cgesar spoke strongly of its strength and durability. 

Last summer I heard a lumber-man in Venice say that its 
durability was amply attested there, as most of the houses of 
the city are built upon larch piles, many of which, though in 
use for centuries, show no signs of decay. In a large Doge's 
palace, now used as a hotel, he showed me some very ancient 
larch window-casings which are still sound. For gondola 
posts in the canals adjoining the houses the larch is preferred. 
In wharves and many other positions in England where there 



23 

is an alternation of wet and dry with the tide, the larch has 
stood this most trying test far hetter than oak. In England 
it is regarded as the best timber for railway ties. Monville 
says: "In Switzerland, the larch, as tlie most durable of 
woods, is preferred for sliingles, fences, and vine-props. Tbese 
vine-props remain fixed for years, and see crop after crop of 
vines bear their fruit and perish without showing any symp- 
toms of decay. TProps of silver fir would not last more than 
ten years." Evelyn says: "It makes everlasting spouts and 
pent-houses, which need neither pitch nor painting to preserve 
them." Michie affirms that " For out-door work it is the most 
durable of all descriptions of wood. I have known larch posts 
that have stood for nearly fifty years." Professor Sargent 
expresses the opinion that "For posts it will equal in dura- 
bility our red cedar, while in the power to hold nails it is 
greatly its superior." The chestnut railway sleeper loses its 
power to hold iron in about seven years, though the tie itself 
may not so soon seriously rot. The larch, while it holds iron 
as firmly as oak, unlike the latter, does not corrode iron. 

The Boston & Albany Railway have larch ties in use for six- 
teen years which are still sound. The president of the Illinois 
Central Railway, having examined the vast planted forests of 
larch in Europe and learned its remarkable fitness for railway 
ties, offers to transport the young plants free of charge to any 
point on their lines or leased lines, provided they are to be 
planted in the vicinity of the same. It is, however, an experi- 
ment which time alone can determine, whether the larch will 
retain its durability when planted in the level, deep, vegetable 
mould of the prairies, with their retentive sub-soil. That it 
will grow there rapidly and luxuriantly is amply proved, but 
its history for many centuries shows that elevated lands suit 
it better than low grounds, and side-hills and mountain slopes 
better than flats. In the rich river flats of Kew Gardens and 
in the vicinity of London the larch does not thrive. The 
specimens found in that remarkable collection of all known 
trees are puny. The Kew arborist informed me that in the 
two hundred and seventy acres appropriated to the arboretum, 
no spot had been found suited to the larch. Mr. James Brown, 



24 

an experienced forester of Scotland, attributes the disease, 
which has of late prevailed in many larch plantations in that 
country, to planting it, both in the nursery and the field, "in 
uncongenial soil. 

No other tree has been planted so extensively in Scotland. 
It attains maturity long before the oak, and serves well for 
nearly all purposes for which oak is used. I^rch trees thirty 
years old are sometimes sold for fifteen dollars each, while 
oaks of the same age are not worth three dollars each. 
According to Newlands the strength of larch timber is to that 
of British oak as 103 to 100; its stiffness as 79 to 100; while 
its toughness is as 134 to 100. As the larch grows erect, with 
short and slender laterals, it may be planted much thicker 
than the oak. According to Loudon ten acres of larch will 
furnish as much ship timber as seventy-five acres of oak. Its 
large timber yield per acre is one source of its popularity in 
Britain. It was first planted on the estate of the Duke of 
Athole, in 1741. Some stately specimens over one hundred 
and thirty years old may be seen near the cathedral at Dun- 
keld. Mr. McGregor, the duke's forester, informed me that 
on this one estate have been planted over twenty-seven millions 
of larch trees, covering over sixteen thousand acres, some of 
which was formerly worth only from one to two shillings per 
acre. 

Dr. James Brown says he has seen matured crops of larch of 
sixty-five years' standing sold for from $750 to $2,000 per acre, 
when the land was originally worth only from $2 to |4 per 
acre. Mr. Sargent, director of the Botanic Garden and 
Arboretum of Harvard College, gives a detailed estimate of 
the profits of a plantation of European larch of ten acres to 
last fifty years, calculating the cost for land, fencing, plants, 
labor, taxes, and interest, and makes the net gain to be 
$52,282.75, or about thirteen per cent, per annum for the 
entire fifty years, after retaining the original capital, and he 
adds: "There are in Massachusetts fully 200,000 acres of 
unimproved land which could, with advantage, be at once 
covered with larch plantations, and if so planted their net 
yield, according to my estimate, in fifty years would be 



25 

81,045,660,000. Supposing that these 200,000 acres will, in 
the natural course of events, produce, during the same time, 
one hundred cords of fire-wood to the acre, worth six dollars 
a cord, amounting to 1120,000,000, and subtracting this sum 
from the net yield of the larch, we have left, as created wealth, 
the respectable sunt of $925,000,000." 

Mr. Sargent, however, admits that this is farming on paper, 
and that considerable allowances should be made for such 
contingencies as fire, tree diseases, insect attacks, and other 
dangers now unforeseen. Robert Douglas of Illinois, who has 
had far more experience in larch planting than any other 
American, writes me that the larch in this country is remark- 
ably free from all disease and insect depredations. 

My special aim has been to encourage the recuperation of 
sterile lands by tree planting. The experiments of thus 
reclaiming barren tracts, which have been tried on a large 
scale in many European countries, prove the superiority of the 
larch for this purpose over all other evergreens, because it is 
deciduous. Grigor says : " No tree is so valuable as the larch 
in its fertilizing effects, arising from the richness of its foliage, 
which it sheds annually. The yearly deposit is very great; 
the leaves remain and are consumed on the spot where they 
drop." Trees also enrich the soil by a curious chemistry 
which disintegrates even the rocks, and transmutes their par- 
ticles into forms of life and beauty. The radicles and rootlets, 
in their underground laboratory, secrete acids which dissolve 
the very sands and stones. 

The frequency of forest fires is urged as an objection to 
tree-planting. Here is a real discouragement ; but forests are 
no more likely to be burned than are our barns and dwellings. 
More property is consumed every year by the burning of 
stores and houses in this country than by forest fires. This 
danger, therefore, should no more prevent tree-planting than 
house-building. But such views need to be spread among all 
classes of the American people as will produce the general 
conviction that the interests of all classes are concerned in 
the protection and conservation of forests. The schools of 
forestry have made this sentiment wellnigh universal m 



26 

Germany, and all classes there appreciate their value and the 
need of protecting them. Browsing and pasturage in certain 
limits are prohibited, and yet the forests are not fenced. Simple 
marks designate where cattle may pasture and where they 
may not, and an intelligent public sentiment is a better 
guardian of the national or communal forests than official 
watchers or national police. 

In some portions of Germany the law formerly required 
every landholder to plant trees along his road frontage. 
Happy would it be for us if the sovereigns of our soil would 
make each such a law for himself. Happy, also, if the law 
of usage, fashion, or interest here, as did the civil law there, 
required that every young man before he married should 
plant a tree. In some of our Western States tree-planting 
by the road-side is encouraged by a bounty from the State 
treasury, and in the fields by both a bounty and exemption 
from taxation for a term of years. The law in Minnesota 
provides that " every person planting, protecting and cultiva- 
ting forest trees for three years, one-half mile or more along 
any public highway, shall be entitled to receive for ten years 
thereafter an annual bounty of two dollars for each half-mile 
so planted and cultivated, to be paid out of the State treasury ; 
but such bounty shall not be paid any longer than such line 
of trees is maintained." If I may be pardoned for repeating 
a personal allusion, the maples which I planted, when a mere 
boy, before the old homestead in Litchfield county, are now 
beautiful and stately trees. As I have often said, they have paid 
me a thousand-fold for the work they cost, and added new 
charms to that beautiful spot, to which I count it a privilege 
to make an annual visit. Among the memories of my boy- 
hood, no day has recurred with such frequency and satisfaction 
as that then devoted to tree-planting. My interest in the 
subject is due to this incident (or perhaps accident) of my 
boyhood. I should be tlmnkful if I could help put a similar 
incident, and an equally grateful experience, into the child- 
hood of our boys of to-day. In this good work may I earn- 
estly bespeak the cooperation of the farmers of Connecticut. 

In tree-planting, the economic and ornamental touch at so 






27 

many points that the cases are rare where they really diverge. 
Nothing, for example, can add so much to the beauty and 
attractiveness of our country roads as long avenues of fine 
trees. I saw this beautifully illustrated in France, last sum- 
mer, where, for over a hundred miles on a stretch, the road 
was lined with trees. In many ways the first Napoleon's inter- 
est in arboriculture proved a benefaction to France. No time 
should be lost in securing the same grand attraction to the 
highways of Connecticut. Growing on land otherwise running 
to waste, such trees would yield most satisfactory returns. 
The shade and beauty would be grateful to every traveler, 
but doubly so to the owner and the planter, as the happy 
experience of many Connecticut farmers can testify. A 
grand work in this direction is already well started. No 
class can contribute so much to the adornment of our public 
roads as the farmers. They have already in abundance the 
very best trees for the roadside, such as the elm, maple, ash, 
American linden (or bass), oak, and in some localities the 
walnut. The hard maple will thrive in dry and gravelly soils, 
while the elm and red maple are specially desirable for moist, 
low ground. As the maples should be planted twenty-five 
feet apart, and the elms from forty to fifty, poplars or willows 
or trees growing rapidly from scions, may be placed between, 
to be cut down when their statelier neighbors require the 
room for their full development. 

Tree-planting is fitted to give a needful lesson of forethought 
to the juvenile mind. Living only in the present and for the 
present, too often youth will sow only where they can quickly 
reap. A meager crop soon in hand, outweighs a golden 
harvest long in maturing. Youth should learn to forecast 
the future as the condition of wisdom. Arboriculture is a 
discipline in foresight — it is always planting for the future, 
and sometimes for the distant future. Says Washington Irv- 
ing, " There is something nobly simple and pure in such a 
taste for trees. It argues a sweet and generous nature to 
have this strong friendship for the hardy and glorious sons of 
the forest. There is a serene majesty in woodland scenery 
that enters into the soul, dilates and elevates it, and fills it 



28 

with noble inclinations. There is a grandeur of thought 
connected with this heroic line of husbandry. It is worthy 
of liberal and free-born and aspiring men. He who plants 
an oak, looks forward to future ages and plants for posterity. 
He cannot expect to enjoy its shelter, but he exults in the 
idea tliat tlie acorn which he has buried in the earth shall 
grow up into a lofty pile, and shall keep on flourishing and 
increasing and benefiting mankind long after he has ceased 
to tread his paternal fields." It was the trees of his own 
planting at Sunnyside-on-the-Hadson, more than the beauty 
of the surrounding landscape, that led Irving to say, " After 
all my wanderings, I return to this spot with a heartfelt 
preference for it over all others in the world." It was the 
simple beauty he had created at Marsh field, — the grassy 
lawns, the shaded approaches, the hundreds of trees of his 
planting, — that bound Daniel Webster so strongly to that 
sequestered spot. The charm of Abbotsford, the grand Mecca 
of Scotland, comes mainly from its beautiful ivy and shrub- 
bery and the thousands of trees planted by the hand of its 
illustrious proprietor. Says Sir Walter Scott, " My heart 
clings to this place I have created. There is scarce a tree in 
it that does not owe its being to me. Once well planted, a 
tree will grow when you are sleeping, and it is almost the 
only thing that needs no tending." 

Any wealthy citizens of Connecticut, who desire to become 
public benefactors, can hardly find a more inviting field for 
their liberality than by offering prizes for sylviculture. A 
few thousand dollars placed in the hands of the Connecticut 
Board of Agriculture would widely stimulate tree-planting, 
and greatly enrich the State. Tlie Massachusetts Society for 
Promoting Agriculture, offer three thousand dollars in the 
following prizes : 

First. For the best plantation of not less than ^iyq acres, 
^1,000 ; for the next best, $000 ; and for the next best, 8-±C0. 
For these prizes the European larch must be planted, except 
in Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket counties, where the 
Scotch pine or Corsican pine must be used, as best adapted 
to sandy plains. Only plantations made on poor, worn-out 



29 

land, or that which is unfit for agricultural purposes, and 
containing at least 2,700 trees to the acre, can compete for 
these prizes. 

Second. For the best plantation of American white ash, of 
not less than five acres in extent, $600 ; for the next best, 
$400. Plantations originally of less than 5,000 trees to the 
acre, cannot compete for these prizes. 

The following directions for tree-planting are condensed 
from the recommendations given by the trustees of the prize 
fund. For planting larch and pine, shallow furrows four feet 
apart should be run one way across the field. Then by plant- 
ing in the furrows four feet apart each way, 2,720 plants will be 
required to the acre. On hilly, rocky land which cannot be 
plowed, it will be only necessary to open with a spade, holes 
large enough to admit the roots of the plants. The larch 
must he planted as early in the season as the ground can he 
worked. No other tree begins to grow so early, and too late 
planting is a common cause of failure. The Scotch and Cor- 
sican pines can be planted up to the first of May. The roots 
should be exposed to the wind and sun as little as possible. 
Carelessness in this particular is often fatal to the young 
plants. The trees should be carried to the field in bundles, 
covered with wet mats, and not be removed till they are re- 
quired for planting. The roots should be carefully spread 
out in the holes or furrows prepared for them, and the soil 
worked among them with the hand, and finally pressed down 
with the foot. A cloudy or rainy day is especially favorable 
for this work. All young plantations ynust he protected fj-om 
browsing animals, the greatest enemies, next to man, to young 
trees and the spread of forest growth. 

If the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad reclaim 
the strip of land bordering their line through the " sand-blow," 
the example would be a benefaction to the State as a demon- 
stration of what may be accomplished under the most un- 
favorable circumstances. If that desert can be reclaimed, 
surely all other barrens in Connecticut may be fertilized by 
forests. This enterprise will require time, faith, patience, 
and money. For the first four years the young trees may seem 



30 

to barely struggle between life and death, after which they 
are likely to grow rapidly. As this scheme will be regarded 
as chimerical by those who have not investigated the subject, 
I give below extracts from letters which I have received from 
practical tree-planters on Cape Cod and elsewhere, embody- 
ing interesting facts and practical suggestions. 

John Doane, Orleans. (Mr. Doane, now eighty six years of age, is the oldest 
living sylviculturist in Barnsiable County.) I have p'anted one liundred acres 
in Orleans and seventy in Brewster. The whole plantation in Orleans is about 
five hundred acres ; in Eastharn seven hundred acres; in Wellfleet four hundred ; 
in Truro six hundred; in Chatham, Harwich, Dennis, and Y'armouth, about four 
hundred each; and in Barnstable six hundred acres. In regard to the other towns 
on Cape Cod I have no definite information, though trees have been planted in many 
towns on the Cape. I have made a machine for planting the seed, that I have 
lent to the tree-planters in five of the neighboring towns. The land I have 
planted with ])ines was not worth over fifty cents per acre before planting, and I 
have sold some since covered with young pines, for fourteen dollars per acre. I 
consider it a good investment. 

John Kenrich, South Orleans.- -"My experiments in tree-planting have been 
made on over a hundred acres now covered with trees from one to thirty-five 
years old, chiefly pitch ])ine. I am now trying Scotch and Corsican pine, and 
Europe;m larch. My first aim has been to cover my worn-out lands with beauty 
and verdure, and it has proved a successful and economic experiment. The seed 
of the pitch pine is worth from one to two dollars a pound, the higher price 
being in the end the cheapest. Fresh seeds, cirefally gathered, are as sure to 
vegetate as corn, but obtained from seedsmen, they are very unreliable in germi- 
nating. European nurserymen take far greater pains in" gathering forest tree 
seeds, and understimd the art of curing them better than Americans. I have 
tried every method of tree planting, transplanting trees from the smallest to 
those that are two feet high. This is a costly plan, bnt maybe adopted when 
one wishes to save time, and desires a few trees as a wind break or otherwise. In 
transplanting trees immediately from my own nursery to the field, my favorite 
time is just as the buds begin to start in the spring. I have planted seeds both 
with a planter and by hand. On our light sands a man and boy will plant three 
acres in a day. Dropping six seeds in a hill, it will take about half a pound of 
seed to the acre. This is my favorite method, and is more satisfactory in results, 
though more costly than that of using the plow and planter. When the ever- 
greens are about two feet high I would thin them, leaving one thrifty plant in 
each hill. I do not trim till they get large, and then cut off only the dead 
branches. 

TuUi/ Crosby, Brewster. In our small town about fifteen hundred acres of old 
waste land have been planted with pitch-pine. The Norway pine has not proved 
a success with us. Many old fields bought for fifty cents per acre, and planted 
wi'h pine twenty-five years airo, are now worth from ten to twenty dollars an acre. 
The pines grow well for twenty-five or thirty years, and Avlien cut off a second 
crop springs up immediately, and this crop does better than the first. The pitch- 
pine takes root and grows on our barren beach sand where no soil is perceptible. Our 
people are now planting trees every year. I have recently planted twelve acres. 
Two years ago I cut off a lot planted thirty years since, and the land is now 
full of young pine trees growing from the seed scattered by the first growth. A 
man wiih a two horse team can plant ten acres in a day, and three pounds of 
seed will do the whole. 

E. Higgins, Eastharn. Thirty years ago twenty acres of cf^ndemned tillage 
land, worth one dollar per acre, was planted with pitch pine. The present value 
of this land is fifteen dollars per acre. Prior to 1870, two hundred and twenty- 
five acres more of the same sort of land was thus planted, the present value of 



31 

which is ei<^ht dollars per acre. About one hundred and fifty acres of sandy 
land, utterly barren and not worth fifty cents to the acre, have been planted, the 
present value ot which is seven dollars i)er acre. 

John G. T7iornpf<on, North Truro. About six hundred and fifty acres have been 
planted iu this tuwu. 'i'he price of pitch pine seed for the last few years has been 
one dollar nnd fifty cents ])er pound. Thirty years ago land in this town could 
be bou;^ht for twenty five cents per acre for tree-planting; now the same kind of 
barr.n land sells for two dollars per acre^for tree-planting. I find the expense 
of planting the pines to be two dollars and twenty five cents per acre. 

S. B. Phinney, Barnstahle. Large tracts of worn-out lands in this county, that 
were worth comparatively nothing, have been planted from the seed of the pitch- 
pine. These experiments have proved successful. I know of no way in which 
the light sandy lands in this sei-tion can be made so valuable as by ])lanting them 
with the pitch-pine. Our experience proves that the cultivation of forest trees is 
feasible and profitable in New England seaport towns. In 1845 I planted iuthis 
town a ten-acre lot with pitch-pine seed, much as corn is planted, dropping three 
seeds in a hill and covering them with half an inch of soil. To-day many of these 
trees will jiirth more than a man's body. Hundreds of acres in this section are 
being planted annually, 

J. E. Crane, Bndgewater. The most profitable tree we have planted in this 
regitm is the white pine, with which about two hundred acres have been planted 
on old worn-out pasture and light sandy soil. The cost of planting, that 
is, setting ant young trees twelve to eighteen inches high, is about eight dollars per 
acre. Properly set out, scarcely one in fifty will fail. There is in this vici\iity 
an acre that was set our thirty five years ago, that has just yielded in cash for 
the iccod and himher, $350. On another acre, planted twenty-eight years ago, 
there is estimated to be from eighty to one hundred cords. These are unusual 
specimens, but fifty cords per acre in twenty-five years, is a low estimate on land 
natural to pine, and pine is the most valuable growth of wood in the Old Colony. 

F. Cottamore, Pembroke. Forty years since, Hon. Morrill Allen, "the model 
farmer " of Plymouth county, planted white pines which grew rapidly, and have 
proved very valuable for the manufacture of wooden packing-boxes. His exam- 
ple has been followed to a limited extent. Every one believes in the profit of it, 
but we are in a well-wooded region, and when a lot is cut off it soon starts up 
again. 

Robert Douglas and Sons, Wauhegan, Illinois. We have propagated the Euro- 
pean larch for nearly twenty years. For a number of years, and until the finan- 
cial collapse, we sowed over one thousand pounds of larch seeds annually, averaging 
five to seven thousand plants to the pound of seed. The larch grows finely and 
rapidly in the New England States, in northern Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and 
Wisconsin. It grows nearly as fast, and makes more durable timber on poor 
lands than on very rich lands. There is no land so poor, except blowing sands, 
but that it will make a rapid growth after it is once fairly established. It is a 
tree adapted to a northern climate, and does not thrive in Kansas, southern Illi- 
noi-:, and south of Pennsylvania. We are growing the native cherry ( Cerasiis 
seratina) in large quantities, as it is healthy, transjdants well, grows rapidly on 
land far from ri'.'h, and the timber is very valual)le. We will send our catalogues, 
giving fuller information, to any party in Connecticut on apphcation. The Euro- 
pean larch shoidd be planted as early as possible in the spring. It should never be 
glanted on low wet ground. Set out early, no tree will bear transplanting better, 
cotch pine and larch do well mixed. We recommend planting a few rows of 
the admixture on the margin of the plantation. When planted four feet by four, 
as we advise, they can be worked both ways with the cultivator for two or three 
years, when the branches will shade the ground so densely as to destroy the 
undergrowth. When the trees are received from the nursery, the boxes should 
be immediately unpacked and the roots dipped into a puddle made of rich, mellow 
soil about the thickness of paint, and kept in a shaded place till ready to plant, 
but the tops should be kept dry. Set the trees a little deeper than they stood in 
the nursery. After treading the earth firmly about the roots, draw a little loose 
earth up to the trees to prevent the surface from baking. 



32 

Francis Skinner, BrooJcUne, a Trustee of Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agri- 
culture. I will receive and transmit orders for any number of trees for plantations in 
Connecticut to Douglas & Sons, Waukegan, Illinois. By arrangement with thenn 
such orders transmitted through you are subject to fifteen per cent, discount from 
the catalogue prices, and such orders can be transmitted up to April 1st, except 
for European larch, for which the closing time will be March 1st. We are filling 
our Massachusetts orders from Douglas & Sons in preference to importing from 
England, as they are cheaper when ordered in large quantities, and the chances 
of tlieir success far greater. American white ash, one or two years old and about . 
one foot high, are from $3 to S5.50 per thousand ; European larch from ^4 to $8 
per thousand. As this duty is undertaken solely from a desire to facilitate tree- 
planting, and not for the ])urpose of any personal gain, I cannot be held respon- 
sible in any v.'ay for the results. 

A. W. Holley, Salisbury, Conn. — The consumption of wood in this and sur- 
rounding towns has been very great in supplying charcoal to our numerous iron 
works. Some of the mountains have been stripped of their trees three times 
within the last century. The second growth was rapid. Each subsequent one 
has been loss vigorous and less rapid. Other varieties, aided by artificial means, 
such as seeding, placing cuttings, or transplanting the young trees, miglit soon 
render our mountains valuable again for the production of forests. Our land- 
owners have not paid sufficient attention to the propagation of trees. The 
denudation of the mountains in Salisbury have lessened our streams. In the 
season of rain there is a more rapid rise and a greater flood than formerly when 
the forests were standing and the foliage and falling limbs lay quietly covering 
the -earth beneath. Many smaller streams which flowed continuously through 
the entire season forty or fifty years ago, fail altogether in the summer, and the 
larger ones are proportionately diminished. Your suggestions in regard to fer- 
tilizing our sandy plains are practical, and should be carried out. 

Experiments are now in progress to fix the dunes or sand 
hills which threaten the Suez Canal, by planting the maritime 
pine and other trees. Last summer I visited the celebrated 
forest of Fontainbleau, in France, which covers an area of 
sixty-four square miles. The soil of this wide tract is com- 
posed almost entirely of sand, and apparently as dry as the 
sand plains of Wallingford. Jules Clare, a student of forest 
science of world-wide fame, says : " The sand here forms 
ninety-eight per cent, of the earth, and it is almost without 
water; it would be a drifting desert but for the trees growing 
and artificially propagated upon it." What has been done 
with signal success at Fontainbleau shows the practicability 
of reclaiming the worst deserts that can be found in our 
State. Many other facts might be cited were it necessary, 
both from home and foreign fields, to prove the feasibility of 
this plan of reclaiming sterile lands. If one is to be com- 
mended who makes two blades of grass grow where but one 
grew before, how much more the farmer who makes forests 
thrive where nothing now grows. 



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